These are not good times for Governor Brown’s Delta Tunnels (WaterFix) proposal. The twin 40-foot-diameter, 30-mile-long tunnels would harvest Sacramento River water before it flows through the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. A vast majority of this water would be sent to Big Ag operations like The Wonderful Company in the Southern San Joaquin Valley. It will destroy the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.
State water officials are saying it’s too soon to know whether this winter will deliver enough rain. But on Jan. 3, they expect to have a better idea of whether the state is headed into another year of drought. The Department of Water Resources will conduct its first media-oriented manual snow survey of Water Year 2017 at 11 a.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 3, at Phillips Station, just off Highway 50 near Sierra-at-Tahoe Road approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento.
The California Department of Water Resources announced that electronic readings of the Sierra Nevada snowpack Tuesday pegged its statewide water content at 10.5 inches, 72 percent of the Dec. 27 average. Manual readings, which supplement the department’s electronic data, will be taken on dozens of snow courses during a 10-day period around Jan. 1. The 2017 water year began with above-average rainfall in October in all three Sierra Nevada regions monitored continuously by the Department of Water Resources.
It’s too soon to declare an end to California’s five-year drought despite the heaviest rain in three decades falling early in the wet season, officials said Tuesday. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides roughly one-third of California’s water supply, measures at 72 percent of normal for water content, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources’ electronic monitors.
It’s too soon to declare an end to California’s five-year drought despite the heaviest rain in three decades falling early in the wet season, officials said Tuesday. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides roughly one-third of California’s water supply, measures at 72 percent of normal for water content, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources’ electronic monitors.
Lake Mead’s water levels this year fell to a near all-time low in the midst of a 16-year drought throughout the Southwestern U.S., prompting discussion at a national conference last week. The Colorado River Water Users Association met last week in Las Vegas for an annual conference, where guests — including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Colorado Gov.
Plans to demolish Matilija Dam moved another step forward last week. California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it will award $3.3 million to the project, one of 44 selected to get Proposition 1 funds this year. The initiative was passed by California voters in 2014 to provide money for water quality and supply projects and restoration work. Matilija Dam, completed in 1948, was designed to create a reservoir but filled with sediment and quickly became obsolete.
As 2016 wound down, California entered its sixth year of drought. But every part of the state wasn’t created equal. Northern California experienced significant drought relief during the year, while Southern California continued to be mired in historically arid conditions. The reason? A much-anticipated El Niño brought substantial storms during the spring to the north, giving Bay Area cities and communities across Northern California their best rainfall totals in five years. San Francisco rainfall was 98 percent of the historic average. San Jose was a healthy 100 percent, and Oakland 80 percent.
Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento than Washington. President-elect Donald J. Trump has packed his cabinet with nominees who dispute the science of global warming. He has signaled he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He has belittled the notion of global warming and attacked policies intended to combat it.
Nicole Adamczyk’s drinking water used to slosh through a snarl of pipes dating from the Coolidge administration — a rusty, rickety symbol of the nation’s failing infrastructure. So, in 2012, this blue-collar port city cut a deal with a Wall Street investment firm to manage its municipal waterworks. Four years later, many of those crusty brown pipes have been replaced by shiny cobalt-blue ones, reflecting a broader infrastructure overhaul in Bayonne. But Ms. Adamczyk’s water and sewer bill has jumped so much that she is thinking about moving out of town.
